A group of motherboard enthusiasts working for GIGABYTE, sharing their insider knowledge and general ramblings of the motherboard business, the tech industry, latest technologies and trends, and other random odds and ends.

Thursday, May 31, 2012

HiCookie put up a couple of killer overclocks online last night with the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H and Z77X-UD5H. First one was the first validated 7GHz score with Ivy Bridge on HWBOT. The 7GHz run was done with the Z77X-UD3H, Corsair Dominator GT and Kingpin’s new Gemini pot from what I can see in the video.

He put up a HD video on youtube during the runs as well for those doubting Thomases.

HiCookie also put up a moster RAM frequency overclock with 4 sticks populated (16GB RAM) at a ridiculous 1639.7MHz using GSkill’s Trident X sticks and Z77X-UD5H.We are proud of our quality of products and show it off with features and performance that matters unlike some manufacturers that resort to smack talk instead. Not saying, but showing right!

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

As with his other reviews he looks at the various chips used on the board such as the Creative Core 3D audio processor and exclusive dual LAN combination of Intel® gigabit Ethernet and the Qualcomm Atheros E2200 game networking platform as can be seen in the diagram below.

He even shows where all the I/O connectivity comes from, i.e. the chipset or a 3rd party chip.

The review finishes off with a ton of BIOS screenies and benchmarks, so if you’re looking for some details on the G1.Sniper 3, be sure to check out this review.

GSkill is putting on a huge OC show at this year’s Computex (being held next week). They’ve invited professional overclockers from different manufacturers to put on one of the most interesting OC shows I’ve seen at these types of events. 4 days of non-stop overclocking, 4 different board manufacturers each day, some great GSkill RAM and GIGABYTE crew, hicookie & dinos22, along with GSkill guests (youngpro&hiwa) on the closing day.

Saturday, May 26, 2012

We recently reported on an Australian overclocker extraordinaire taking out the single GPU 3DMARK06 world record with his GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H. He wasn’t playing around and went for the kill by taking out the global world record in 3DMARK06 also by edging out rsannino from Italy by the merest of margins (15 points).

Friday, May 25, 2012

I just came across an interesting article on Guru3D from earlier this year. Hilbert Hagedoorn dug out some stats regarding the failure rates for PC components by vendor and it’s interesting to see that of the four motherboard vendors, GIGABYTE has the lowest failure rate. Ok, so the data reflects only boards sold by one e-retailer in France, and within in a somewhat limited timeframe, but still – it does a good job of underlining our efforts to make boards that are as durable as possible.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

I’ve been doing some RAM testing on the new Z77 GIGABYTE platform and must say I am pretty impressed with how well the new GSkill TridentX memory has been performing.

My testing revolves around frequency efficiency (as in high frequency with very tight timings that is capable of running very fast for the CPU and RAM set frequency limit in SuperPi 32M). I could reach well over 1400MHz frequency with this RAM but 1400MHz(2800) 10-12-12-19-1T was the fastest mix of efficiency and speed. This ram is rated at 1300MHz 10-12-12-31-2T at stock so that is a nice boost past rated speed and timings also.

GIGABYTE and GSkill are planning on putting on an overclocking show for this year’s Computex so keep a close eye on that. We will update you with some news as it happens as well.

Here are some results obtained with GIGABYTE Sniper3 board and GSkill TridentX 2600 kit. I hear Corsair, Kingston and Team Group have similar RAM also, time to get some new RAM to make your platform really shine!

TEST SYSTEM:

GIGABYTE Sniper3 (Z77 based) motherboard

Intel 3770K Ivy Bridge CPU

GSkill Trident X 2600

Corsair F90 SSD

Corsair HX750 Power Supply

Running daily testing for me is done on an old Mach SS cooler that runs at –40C. Perfect for long superpi testing sessions! Getting high frequency RAM clock on Z77 can be obtained with all air cooled setup as well which is good news for those putting together their 24/7 high end PCs.

GIGABYTE Sniper3 is the board i tend to use for my day to day RAM testing. Stable board with great frequency OC and efficiency.

Extreme overclocking is a very competitive sport and any small advantage can provide big gains. One of well known German overclockers that goes by nickname der8auer(meaning “farmer” i’m told) decided to take the razor blades out and remove the CPU IHS and reapply better paste.

Results were significant as he decreased core temperature and managed to jump in max frequency by 50MHz yielding seconds fastest wprime in the word, only 0.01s under current world record.

This will void your warranty of course but for overclockers this can mean the difference between 5th or 2nd or potentially top spot if you find the right CPU. He does say that it is not really recommended for air cooling guys as the gain is only 6-7C which does not justify losing warranty.

His wprime score was done at 6438MHz using the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H motherboard.

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

The day has finally arrived. We’ve been watching our Facebook ‘Likes’ number ease its way towards the symbolic 10,000 mark for weeks, but today we hopped over the line. Way back in December 2009 we took our first and tentative steps in to the world of social media, and as with many companies, the ROI for the time and energy spent wasn’t always easy to explain to the boss or even quantify accurately. But after more than two years and several hundred posts, we can now boast a remarkable 10,000 ‘likes’ which amounts to 10,000 followers who hopefully care about is happening on the world of GIGABYTE motherboards, and that means a lot to us.

Thanks guys. It feels like it’s been a long time coming, but we’re so glad to have you all on board! Pun fully intended of course….

We’ve spotted a new world record over at HWBOT.ORG yesterday for the single card 3DMARK06. Youngpro, from Australia, used the GIGABYTE Z77X-UD3H board and a somewhat new GIGABYTE GTX680OC GPU.

It is good to see the new GTX680 cards are starting to finally make a small mark on records. It did require some interesting home made controller board mods from what we can see in the photos which we hope to bypass once the GIGABYTE GTX680SOC(Super Overclock) cards come out.

Thursday, May 17, 2012

Just thought I’d share this one with you all. Sean Kalinich from Decrypted Tech has uploaded a good old-fashioned unboxing video of our Z77X-UD3H motherboard where he covers just about every inch of both board and package. Take a look and discover if this board is the one for you.

Sean has also published an in-depth written article to accompany the video, which you can check out here on DecryptedTech.com

Wednesday, May 16, 2012

Diablo3 launched and no doubt millions of people are already hooked on. If you want to see some pro gamer Diablo3 action, Team Immunity from Australia is live streaming their event in HD playing Diablo3 non-stop. They are a lot of gamers at RedBull HQ in Sydney right now taking shifts to get their turn to play! COOOOL!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

It has come to our attention that reviewer and eTeknix chief Andy Ruffell has just published his review of our GIGABYTE Z77-D3H motherboard and we’re delighted to see that he has deemed it good enough to warrant the eTeknix Editor’s Choice award. Check out what Andy has to say about our mid-range Z77 offering:

“We can’t help but feel that this [Z77-UD3H] is going to be one of the more successful boards on the market, and can honestly see system integrators using it for pre-built systems as it offers great potential for a variety of uses. This is also down to the features, the overclockability, the branding and of course the price and with those four things, we can see this flying off the shelves.

One of the nicest features this board has is most likely the BIOS, as it’s good to see some extreme features, like the 3D and Advanced BIOS on a low-end board, as it gives a more upmarket feel and helps with the Gigabyte branding as a whole.

Due to this board not having any flaws, and offering great performance at stock and overclocked speeds, we can’t find a reason not to give it the Editor’s Choice Award and have to congratulate Gigabyte on this board. As we said before, this is the sucessor to the Z68AP-D3 and it’s not very often that a sequel is as good as the first.”

You can find the full and detailed review including plenty of benchmarks etc here on eTeknix.com

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Until just a few weeks ago, we here at GIGABYTE aimed our G1.Killer series of motherboards at PC builders that were building full sized gaming rigs. Rigs that could strike fear into the hearts of your enemies, towering high enough to intimidate small children. In fact the original X58-based GIGABYTE G1.Assassin board was only feasible within an E-ATX form factor, such was the level of 3D gaming bling going on there.

And although the gaming PC eco-system provides plenty of options for large gaming rigs in terms of chassis, liquid cooling kits, high-watt PSUs, custom cables, cooling fans and a whole lot more besides – there remains a dedicated few who preferred to spec out a slightly more modest, more compact rig that they could take to Lan partys, friend’s houses or wherever the action was. Portability, it turns out, remains an important factor to many PC gamers and builders.

And this is where the new Ivy-Bridge-toting GIGABYTE G1.Sniper M3 finds its place in the big wide world. The G1.Sniper M3 is of course the first Micro-ATX form factor board to grace the GIGABYTE G1.Killer line-up. It’s 24.4cm x 24.4cm PCB is decked out with the same green and black hardware, packing a Creative Sound Core3D audio chip and the highly respected Intel Gigabit LAN NIC.

“I've been using the Intel Z68 Express-baased G1.Sniper motherboard for some time now, and I must say, I am very very happy with that product. This new G1.Sniper M3 is going to replace that board, and while making that move, I don't think I'm going to lose out on any functionality, and if anything, I'm going to gain a bit more, thanks to the improvements the Intel Z77 Express platform offers. Gigabyte really has made a big change in how their motherboards work with these new products, although appearances at first may not indicate such changes.”

Wednesday, May 9, 2012

Neo is a PC magazine editor by day and an extreme overclocker & editor of the world famous The Overclocker e-zine when sun disappears and moon shines on South Africa. He, like many others, has found his love for benching subzero again and it’s usually that little program called 3DMARK01 that sucks you straight back in but this time it’s for real, Intel Ivy Bridge is making all the difference!

We got a sneak peak at him working very hard at the office at 1:33am benching GIGABYTE Z77X-UD5H by the looks of it, Intel Ivy Bridge and that famous 3DMARK01 with a tagline…

Monday, May 7, 2012

Hot on the heels of his Ivy Bridge OC guide last week, the ever prolific Sin0822 is back, this time with a full and detailed review of our top-end Z77X-UD3H motherboard. Sin goes into real detail when it comes to our All Digital PWM design – pretty interesting stuff if you really want to appreciate the ins and outs of an extreme-performance board and how our unique digital PWM really works.

Saturday, May 5, 2012

This weekend marks the start of a long benching season where overclockers around the world are flocking to their nearest retailer and buying lots of Intel 3770K CPUs and Z77 boards to go with them. I know among my friends (www.teamau.net), there was at least 15 CPUs purchased. Chips are getting frozen as we speak! Some CPUs are bad and some are decent, everyone is looking for that golden chip!

I took some time last week to compile a few video diaries (best way to describe this video) and pass on some of the knowledge I’ve acquired over the past few months of testing Z77 platform with Ivy Bridge CPUs. I hope this video will have something for the beginners and experienced guys and perhaps answer some questions about “walls” you may experience this weekend (hopefully not but overclocking is 50% trouble shooting particularly at the start of new gen hardware right!).

Thursday, May 3, 2012

It’s been really good to see that some of the industry’s top motherboard reviewers have taken a shine to our high-end Z77X-UD5H motherboard. Bit KitGuru and TweakTown took the time to inspect, prod, push and thoroughly benchmark our top-end Z77 offering, and we’re delighted to see both reviewers giving a ‘Must Have’ thumbs up. Here’s a taste of what they had to say:

“GIGABYTE has put together a really nice Intel Z77 Express based motherboard with the Z77X-UD5H and it does a good job of ticking all the boxes…Cosmetically the board looks fantastic. The black PCB looks great and combined with that UD5H blue that I've always been a big personal fan of, you end up with something that looks really good.

In the end we've got a really nice motherboard from GIGABYTE. It's that typical UD5 kind of board and for us that's a good thing. It's a quality board that looks great and comes in under that $200 price tag. It's one for you to consider.” - Shane Baxtor - TweakTown

“The Gigabyte Z77X-UD5H is without doubt one of the finest Z77 motherboards we have reviewed to date. We have been impressed with not only the stability and reliability over the last week, but also the potential for overclocking. The 12 Phase power design delivers fast transient response times and class leading power delivery. We have no hesitation in recommending the Z77X-UD5H for a new system build. It is just as good as the Asus motherboards we have tested…” – Zardon – KitGuru

You can find the full and detailed review articles here on TweakTown and KitGuru.